How to Protect Your Personal Brand

Everyone in business has a personal brand.

Your title says what you do, your brand says who you are. It establishes an image in the minds of your colleagues, customers and the general public. Branding expert David Sandusky points out that an effective brand gives you a recognizable trusted personality and tells the world what you stand for.

Some let their brand just happen while successful businesspeople proactively plan and develop the brand that they wish to project. Your strong brand is a valuable asset to your business.

The good news is that creating and projecting your brand is faster and easier in the new social media world. Using your website along with social networks such as Blogs, Facebook and Twitter can increase your exposure and image in exponential growth on a global basis. But along with benefits, there are pitfalls in today’s new media world.

You Must Protect Your Brand. Your brand is the image of how you want people to know you but in the new media you must be cautious.

You are always seen. Can you say Michael Phelps? Here‘s a guy that worked for years to become a champion, picking up 8 gold medals at the summer Olympics. He established his brand and was rewarded with huge endorsement contracts. Then, with a little help from a bong, he forgot that everyone has a cell phone with a camera and many of his contracts went up in smoke. In today's world, you're always in the public eye.

Your words are forever. What you say as well as images you put on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are there for the entire world to see and they are going to stay there. When someone does a Google search on you two years from now, what you write now will be there. And don't do a fake blog. It can come back and bite you, ask John P. Mackey of Whole Foods Market

Protect your website. There are thousands of hackers out there trying to break into your computer system and your website. Don’t go cheap on your security system, it can be very costly down the road.

My website nightmare. Two years ago my website was 'legally' hijacked and the link led to a Porn site. I registered my website domain name with a major company for three years. I began selling PUSHING WATER UPHILL With A Rake and corresponding with readers through my site and life was good. Then, without my knowledge, my contract expired.

Here’s the scam: On the expiration date, companies that work directly and indirectly with the domain registration companies buy expired names in bulk, assign them as links to porn sites and then play an extortion game of offering to obtain it back for you for a fee of thousands of dollars.

This happened to me in December when I sell 25% of my books. I had sent out a book promotion to my various email lists and discovered that no one could access my site or send me emails. My email, tied to my site was no longer working and everyone that went to the site saw a sleazy porn site instead.

For many of you who know me, you are probably laughing about this. It does sound pretty funny until you realize that a person's copyright, trademark, and identity can be legally defiled for a quick buck. It cost me thousands in sales. All the various articles by or about me on Google, Yahoo etc., as well as all outstanding business cards and books now had the link to a porn site and I couldn't remove any of it. I could only set up a new site and start over.

To anyone who has a website:
- Check your files and verify the expiration date on your domain name.
- Be certain that the domain registration company has your current email address on file so they can notify you before expiration.
-Renew before it expires.

By Steve Baker